[Boost-users] What's best practice to incorporate Boost.Test in own project?

From: Mateusz Łoskot (mateusz_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-03-05 13:06:44

Hi,

I'm going to add Unit Tests to one of projects.
It's quite big project, so there will be many tests suits and cases.
The project build system is based on automake for Unix and nmake for
Windows.
I wonder what is the best practice to include Boost.Test
frameworks to my own project?

Currently I consider only Unit Test Framework.

I see following possibilities:

1. Boost libraries are installed from official release
(precompiled or compiled by user)
Makefiles for my project try to detect if Boost exists and link to
Unit Test Framework librar.
Here Boost has to be listed in compilation requirements of my project.

2. Boost.Test libraries in binary form are included to my project tree
and shipped together.
So there is no requirement to have complete Boost installed, because
test can link to UTF library already present

3. Include Boost.Test source code and allow user of my project to build 
UTF library on his own. Here I expect some problems with bjam/makefiles 
incompatibility. So, bjam would be required on user's platform.
Simply, this solution seems to be quite confusing for user.

I'd like to know your comments about which solution is best and what are 
possible traps hidding.
Regarding the 1 solution I think there may be possible problem with 
using incorrect Boost.Test version.
The second one involves additional work for overall projct maintenance.

May be there are more possibilities I've not listed above, so please 
share your ideas.

Thanks in advance for your comments.
Best regards
-- 
Mateusz Łoskot
http://mateusz.loskot.net